


Numerical Identity

by mitzvahmelting



Series: matchjokes [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Dubcon Kissing, Identity Porn, M/M, Power Dynamics, it's identity porn but no secret identities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:24:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6392272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitzvahmelting/pseuds/mitzvahmelting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>If Batman were here, he would offer Joker a choice. The easy way or the hard way.  Arkham now or Arkham later.  Bargains in between the gauntlet knuckles.  Behind the cowl.  Caught in his teeth.</i>
</p><p>Matches might be a lot of things, but he's not Batman. At least, he's not Batman enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Numerical Identity

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to DracoMaleficium for working through some of these ideas with me.
> 
> I have a paragraph in the end notes about the definition of Numerical Identity.

The passenger side mirror swings like a loose tooth when they turn onto the highway, and Joker catches sight of something peculiar.  So he grabs the little handle and rolls down the window, and then things get windy, as if the dusk itself is whooshing into the car, and Joker sticks his hand out and gets ahold of the mirror to steady it, and he looks at himself.  Yes, it was just as he’d suspected.  Matches had smeared his lipstick.

At first, Joker doesn’t know how to feel about that. It’s not as if he regrets kissing Matches (or, more accurately _, Matches kissing him, hard, romantically, in the light of the setting sun)._ But this – this is grotesque, this is unbecoming. This is not the way Joker likes to be seen, with red smudges all around his mouth. 

“Would you close that thing?” Matches demands.

Joker obliges, releasing the mirror to the mercy of the air friction and rolling the window back up.  “I look like a cheap whore,” he pouts.

Malone glances at him and then back at the road, smiling slightly, twirling the match with his tongue. “I don’t know, I think this is a pretty conservative look for you, considerin’.”

Then it’s Joker remembering the feeling of Malone’s mouth on his cock, on his balls. Feeling flushed and uncomfortable in the passenger seat, sore and sensitive underneath his trousers and boxers. Malone has a talent for triggering those sorts of thoughts with only the vaguest of insinuations.  Joker glares at him, for that. “I need to take this off,” he says.  He slaps the glove compartment open.  

He shouldn’t have been surprised to find four boxes of different brands of matchbooks stashed there. 

“Okay, okay,” Matches says sheepishly about the incendiaries, “I swear, I don’t have a problem. It’s just ‘cause, you know, if you’re in Gotham, you’ve gotta ham up the shtick.”

“Don’t you have anything useful in here?” Joker sighs, prodding past the matchboxes, “Napkins? Moist towelettes?” His anxiety about his appearance, about having the stuff on his face and not being able to take it off, about looking silly in front of Matches… it all cranks up as he searches the car for something suitable.  He feels sticky.

“Moist towelettes?” the mobster scoffs, “Kid, come on, do I look like the sort of person who uses moist towelettes?”

“I don’t know _what_ sort of person you look like,” Joker mutters, and then he pitches forward and starts wriggling out of his suit jacket.

Once free, he tosses the jacket into the back, fiddles with the button of his sleeve, and then pushes the fabric up his arm.  Blank canvas of skin, white white white, even in the fleeting glow of streetlights.  Joker puts his mouth on his bare forearm and starts scrubbing.

“You’re just gonna end up with smears all over your arm.”

But it’s sort of coming off, and that’s what matters. Joker licks his lips, as if maybe that will help take off the waxy residue, and scrubs some more with his newly pink forearm.  Then he thinks, well, he’s not the _only_ one with makeup.

And it doesn’t quite make sense, but few things do, and now Joker is anxious to get Malone’s makeup off as well.

There are only maybe six other cars on the highway, in the other lanes, and Matches is pushing the car to hit around 75mph. Single-minded in all pursuits, Joker tucks his legs under himself so he’s sitting tall, and he licks his thumb, then reaches over to rub at the crease between the mobster’s eyebrows. 

Malone’s jaw is clenched tight like the dark knight, and he pulls off the gas a little and the streetlights fly by fast, like a flipbook. “Sit down, I’m drivin’ here.”

“It’s not coming off.” Joker rubs and rubs with his thumb.

“What, my _skin?_ ” He takes a hand off the steering wheel, and his open palm catches Joker in the chest, shoving him back into his seat. “I said sit down.  What’s _wrong_ with you?  You want me to crash or somethin’?”

Joker resettles against the worn leather and stares forward, a frown tugging at his mouth, Malone’s voice hanging in the air.  He manages to say something vaguely teasing, “You _must_ tell me the brand,” but it sounds flat, and he fidgets and opens the glove compartment again, then shuts it.

“You think this ain’t my real face?” Matches snorts, but it seems like he’s lost his humor as well, and he’s grimacing at the road instead of the easy smile from earlier.  “That’s cute,” he says, dismissively.

Joker glances at Matches, at the lines on the man’s face, the hints of wrinkles, the weariness of age. The mobster looks like maybe he’s in his mid-forties.  And all of that, all of that is supposed to be makeup. “You’re wrong,” Joker says, finally, “Bruce Wayne doesn’t have wrinkles.”

Malone’s fingers grip the steering wheel a little tighter.  “Yeah, well,” and the match twitches as he sucks on it, “maybe you should be pokin’ at _his_ face.”

The conversation ends there, and the dusk turns to night silently but for the hum of the engine.

 

Matches Malone’s apartment looks like what would happen if a seedy Crime Alley motel had sex with the _Sears_ catalog in 1983. The furniture was never meant to last over thirty years of wear.  The wallpaper is yellowish, the curtains are plaid, and there is a standard-definition box television hooked up to some wires leading out the window because of course he’s stealing somebody else’s cable subscription. At most, he has three square feet of kitchen space by the entrance of the suite, half of which is overwhelmed with wrinkled plastic shopping bags bulging with cleaning agents and other household chemicals.

“Why don’t you - why don’t you sit down for a minute,” Matches says, leading Joker into the suite and towards the unmade bed.  “I’ll get you a drink.”  He doesn’t wait for a response before heading over to the minifridge.

Joker doesn’t feel particularly dirty as he sits cross-legged atop the rumple of sheets. The bedding was probably washed recently. Perhaps just after the cold snap broke, judging by the vintage granny-square afghan folded neatly in the corner, which seems large enough to have been used on the bed as extra warmth.

“Shit,” says Matches, mostly to himself, squatted down in front of the minifridge, “I coulda sworn I had at least a couple cans.”

“It’s fine.”

“You want a soda?”

Joker can’t always handle carbonated drinks.  “Could I have some water?” he asks, not quite sounding like himself, still taking in the patterns of the room, the slight chill of Malone’s demeanor since they got out of the car.

“Sure thing.” Joker hears the spray of the tap.

It all seems so real, and lived in. As if Matches actually lives here. As if he’s always lived here.  The illusion is impeccable, Joker thinks as Malone hands him the glass of water, and Joker takes it between two hands and looks at it for a moment (cool, cool beneath his fingers) before sipping.  At first, Joker watches for lipstick stains on the glass, but then he remembers what happened in the car, and the rosy stains on his arm.

Malone toes off his loafers and then leans one leg up onto the bed.  He’s looking at Joker, and he’s sucking on the match, and it takes him a moment before he says anything, finally murmuring, “Kid, you know it ain’t makeup,” as if he’s still trying to convince Joker of this. “No one’s tryin’ to pull one over on you.”

Joker shrugs halfheartedly and sips the water, and it tastes metallic from the old pipes.  Matches grabs one of Joker’s hands from the cup, and drags Joker’s fingers across his cheek.

Malone’s skin is hot like life-blood and chemical vats, sweat sticky and hairy and Joker is a little bit startled because he hadn’t had time to prepare himself for having these sensations, but he lets Matches control his hand.  It’s intimate, and real, and there’s no makeup, and it’s so, so wrong.

Joker abruptly pulls his hand away and sort of wipes it on his pants. “The chemicals in your kitchen,” he says, and his voice only wobbles a little. “Is that for… for that shop you were talking about? To set the fire?”

The man just looks at him for a moment, just looks, and then he huffs. “Don’t play dumb, kid. You know how to set fires.”

“But – but that’s what it’s for, right? For arson?”

“What are you, a cop? Course that’s what it’s for.” Matches turns from Joker, to look at the plastic bags on the counter.  He scratches his chin thoughtfully, and says, “That’s what I do.  This luxury livin’ space don’t pay for itself, you know.  Is that so hard to wrap your head around?”

“Mm…” Joker sips some more water, then says, “I always thought you were bluffing.”

“Bluffin’,” Matches repeats.

They make eye contact. Joker holds up the glass between them and stares through it, the way it turns BatMatches pear-shaped like a funhouse mirror.

“You know what?” Matches starts with a hint of aggravation, then seems to change course, and he says “I’m gonna shower.”

“Okay.”

Matches takes a clean t-shirt and pajama pants from the closet and shuts the bathroom door, and the noise of the shower reaches Joker through the wall.

 

In another universe, maybe Joker would know himself, know his feelings enough to feel comfortable in this space and time.  Maybe he wouldn’t sniff thoughtfully at the scent of the other man on his fingertips, and wonder if Matches is being honest.

Honesty has never been something particularly important to Joker. But with Matches… Joker isn’t keen on developing feelings for someone who is more mask than man.

The closet is very shallow, with only enough room for a couple racks for clothes to hang. The back of the closet door has one of those hanging contraptions for storing shoes, but Matches has only one pair of shoes, so the organizer is instead filled with various other accessories. Many of the little plastic pockets hold socks, which would be far more intriguing if the socks weren’t all neutral colors like beige and black and forest green.  The others contain various pairs of sunglasses, including the ones from today that Matches’ had slipped off when they arrived at the apartment.  There is also something folded and black and vinyl in one of the pockets, and that looks promising, until Joker pulls it out and it unfolds and it’s just a rain poncho.

Unimpressed with the closet – no secret compartments, no hidden Batsuit – Joker moves on to the chemicals in the kitchen.  The shopping bags have the names and logos of massive chain stores printed into the plastic.  Inside, Joker finds kerosene, turpentine, butane, and other fire accelerants that a skilled arsonist can conceivably make use of without leaving any significant evidence behind for the insurance investigators.

Joker doesn’t know what he wants, and that’s what’s eating away at him.  He doesn’t know if he wants Matches to be a fully realized person, which is what the fact of his real face and real apartment and real crimes seems to suggest, or if he wants the Matches persona to crumble so that… so that he…

He wants armor and Kevlar and gauntlets and batarang blades. He wants cowl and cape and leather clad fingers slick, slipping, stretching him open. He wants – or. He’s accustomed to Batman.  Could he ever trade that for… this?

When Matches finishes his shower (and changes into the pajamas while still in the bathroom, so what does _that_ say about trust, that Joker’s never seen the man naked?), the first thing he sees when he opens the door is Joker by the kitchen counter with the plastic cap of the 5lb. kerosene container in his teeth, dangling a lit match over the lip of the jug between two thin fingers.

The response is instinctual, and that’s what Joker had been counting on.

Batman seizes the television remote from the bedside table and launches it at Joker, where it hits his hand and sends the match into the air away from the kerosene, then he bounds past Joker to stamp out the match with his bare foot before it can catch on the carpet and set the apartment on fire, all the while shouting, “What the _fuck?_ Fuck. Fuck.”

Joker screws the cap back on, and he can hear his own heartbeat in his ears and he can feel it in his face, even as he grins wide, “I knew you’d come save me, ol’ Batsy ol’ pal.”

“You could have burned down the whole goddamn building what were you _thinking?!”_

“It was an experiment,” Joker declares, triumphant and sated, because here is the Bat, here is the Bat, the Bat is here for _him…_

A hand latches into the fabric of Joker’s shirt, and lifts him off the floor, and he’s giggling and he can’t quite see anything but a flash of sharp blue eyes, and he can’t breathe, and he says, “Come on, Batsy, come on, kiss me, hit me, I don’t even, _hah,_ I don’t even _care_ just do it quick before the other guy comes back-”

And a look of utter disgust crosses those blue eyes and the man says “Fuck you,” as he throws Joker down hard on the mattress.

Joker’s eyes burn like he’s just inhaled something noxious, and he grins stupid at Batman from the bed and gasps for breath.

But Batman is talking like Matches.

“You _wretch,”_ he snarls down at Joker, “How come I ain’t enough for you?!  I give you _everythin’_ you ever wanted from the Bat, you ungrateful little _shit.”_

“…hah… _hit me,”_ Joker pants, squirming because now Malone is on top of him, caging him into the bed, and Joker is half-hard and Malone’s shower-wet hair is dripping onto his face.  Malone’s face is naked, no match, no glasses.

For a moment, it looks like Malone is going to do it.  Looks like he’s going to slap Joker, open-palmed and hard across his cheek, the kind of blow that would leave his face bruised, and, oh, Joker wants that, Joker wants the Batman back, he wants everything to go back to the way it was, he wants it to _hurt._

Malone’s breath trembles on the exhale. “No,” he says, firmly.

“…want you to…”

“You want _Batman_ to hit you, not me.”

“…want-” but the ferocity shoots through Joker’s veins sudden and sharp, and he growls and starts – starts trying to land a blow on the mobster’s stupid _face,_ Malone blocks Joker’s right hand, Joker tries to lift his left leg and kick him in the chest but then Malone climbs onto the bed and uses his knee to hold Joker’s thigh down, Joker’s panting inout-inout-inout-in and he tries to land a punch at Malone’s jaw but then Malone seizes his left wrist, that’s both hands held in Malone’s grip, and

Matches braces Joker’s wrists above them against the sheets and the mattress, holds him down and then – kisses Joker, kissing Joker, all teeth and tongue and the taste of, of toothpaste and lingering tar.

When their mouths part for half a second, Joker breathes “Stop,” and Malone doesn’t stop, probably doesn’t hear him, probably thinks he’s saying _don’t stop_. Joker can’t move, can’t breathe, helpless and restrained, trying to tug away from Malone’s grip, the tongue in his mouth, suffocating under the weight of the larger man, not his, not his Batman, not- 

He struggles and grunts and _“Stop!”_

Matches lets go, backs off.  Joker is shivering, whole-body shivering, violent tremors and mouth gaping and he rolls out from under Malone’s body and feels nauseous.

His hands form fists, his fingernails dig at his palms.  _“I don’t want you!”_ he screams, far too loud for this little apartment, because he needs to get the words out, voice like an alarm, “You’re not-” like noxious fumes, eyes dry, too dry and burning, like staring into flames, “I want-”

“He can’t love you,” Matches explains, fervently, “He can’t love a murderer.  I can.”

 _“I don’t want you!”_ he shouts again.  “You’re not – you’re not real.  You’ll never be real. You’ll always be pretending.”

“Hey,” murmurs Matches, trying to placate. “Hey, it’s okay. Kid. Listen.”

Joker is still shaking, and the whole room is shaking around him.  Can’t focus his eyes on anything. It’s all a blur, even Matches, hazy blue.

“Oh, no. Don’ cry.”

“I – I’m not,” Joker corrects. He’s fairly certain the wetness on his face is the drips from Malone’s hair, where they had landed a moment ago.  He isn’t so out of control as to – and a fresh wave begins trailing down his cheeks, hot and frustrating.

Matches shifts over to him, too-gentle hands cupping his face. “Listen. Look at me.” Joker looks, but he can’t see him, not really, just blue, and the heat and weight of the man’s fingers on his face, thumb brushing away tears.  “You need to understand somethin’.  Batman is gone.”

Joker lets out a sound like a particularly distressed tea kettle.

“And he ain’t comin’ back for a long time, kid.  So you can go, you don’ have to stay here with me. You can go back out there and wait for him, but it won’ make him come back any faster, no matter what you try to do.”

“I’ll make him come back.”

“All you’ll get is me.”

Grinding his teeth, Joker pushes Malone’s hands away and goes back to the corner of the mattress, twisting his fingers up in the sheets and turning away from the man.  This disgusting man. This man who is _nothing_ like Batman.

Joker can feel dread, the ache of loneliness, isolation, abandonment, hovering on the horizon, ready to obliterate him more thoroughly than any of the abuse Gotham has ever handed him. 

“Or,” Joker breathes, and he hates himself even as he lets the words fall out of his mouth and tumble onto the bedsheets like broken pieces of him, “I could stay.”

Matches shifts forward again. It doesn’t escape Joker that the other man is crowding him into a corner of the bed, that Matches keeps touching him even when he pulls away. Matches whispers, “You’d have to be good,” as he runs his fingers through Joker’s hair, and _oh_ , it’s like he reaches into Joker and resettles his mind in proper rows, calm with the motion against his scalp.  “You’d have to be obedient.”

“Obedient.”

“Mmhmm.  No more tryin’ to provoke me.  If you promise to be a good boy, then, yeah. You can stay.  You can stay and be with me until Batman comes back around. I’ll take care of you.”  His voice is warm, carrying notes of the detective, flowing over Joker in waves.

“Sick bastard,” Joker chokes out, shivering as Malone moves closer, touching him. “You’re setting me up.  It’s a trap.  There’s no choice.”

If Batman were here, he would offer Joker a choice. The easy way or the hard way.  Arkham now or Arkham later.  Bargains in between the gauntlet knuckles.  Behind the cowl.  Caught in his teeth.

Maybe its proof that Batman isn’t here, when Matches pulls Joker back into his lap and whispers in his ear, “Baby boy, you _need_ me, so here I am.” The man’s fingers curl possessively around Joker’s stomach and it’s all Joker can do not to exhale on a moan, “This ain’t no trap. This is just me, _spoilin’ you rotten.”_

When Matches turns off all the lights in the room, what remains in the darkness is the ambient glow from street-level neon signs, the charging light from Malone’s flip phone where it sits on the bedside table, and the bright green pinpoint on the face of the box television that says _even though I’m off, I’m still on._

In the dark, underneath the covers in places Joker can’t see, Matches is touching him.  Prying his cheeks apart, tracing his hole with a dry fingertip, soft and gentle. Despite himself, Joker is aroused, and trying to remind himself that Matches is Batman, that he is getting hard for _Batman,_ not the skeevy arsonist with the power kink who gets off on putting Joker in his place. 

_You wretch._

And it’s more difficult now, because he can’t say _Batman_ out loud, lest Matches get angry, and force the fact into Joker’s head with brutal repetition of explicit denials and teasing and flirting – Joker can’t handle that anymore, doesn’t want to hear Matches keep saying it. 

Then, a cool, wet finger, pressing against him, and Joker breathes out slowly.  He is lying on top of Malone, his hardness pressed against the cotton of Malone’s t-shirt.  “Slow,” the mobster whispers past Joker’s ear and into the darkness of the room, “shhh, slow, slow.” He pushes inside, one knuckle at a time, the room fresh and quiet in the dark. “Mmmm,” a whisper-soft kiss against Joker’s temple, “my good boy.”

_How come I ain’t enough for you?_

Joker doesn’t make a sound, but he breathes, slow and controlled, and even that sounds loud in the darkness. Inhale. He can smell the shampoo from Malone’s shower, the familiar scent of his skin, feel the warmth of his body.  Malone’s finger caresses his insides like the kneading of a cat, sensuously, adding a second finger with lots more wetness to ease the way. Exhale. 

It goes like this for some time, the sound of the wind whooshing through the allyway, the sound of Joker’s slow breathing, Malone’s humming, the feeling of being methodically stretched on unhurried fingers.  “More?” Matches asks, every so often.  Joker doesn’t respond. Breathes in, slow, careful.  Breathes out, slow, careful.  Doesn’t flinch.  Feels like one of those big machines in the factory district, the hiss of steam, the steady, heavy, unyielding rhythm.  “Can I?” Matches asks, eventually. The sounds of plastic tearing. Inhale – it fills Joker’s lungs, his abdomen, his mind. Forehead pressed against Malone’s skin, slight nod, eyes shut tight. The burn of penetration, the wide head of Malone’s cock. Gasps once on his breath. “I’ve got you.” Wet kiss to his forehead, the smell of Matches, Matches everywhere. Matches, not Batman. And Batman. Exhale.

_I give you everythin’ you ever wanted from the Bat._

There is a realization here, in the quiet, in the quiet with cock inside him, and darkness covering him, and a man’s hand hot on his spine, that the body is the same. The body must be the same.  Under the cowl, behind the pretty face of the socialite, the body is the same.  Joker pushes up off the bed (and, with the change in angle, the cock presses deeper inside him, teeth-gritting pressure). “Let me see,” he chokes out.

The man looks up at him, but doesn’t answer, runs a warm hand down Joker’s side and elicits a shiver, makes Joker clench around him and gasp involuntarily at the feeling of fullness. So full.  Stretched so wide.

_You ungrateful little shit._

“Let me see,” Joker repeats, and leans forward, turns on the bedside lamp.  He pulls off the man’s cock in the process, empty and wide.

Matches squints up at him in the lamplight but still doesn’t say anything. Joker tugs at the hem of his t-shirt, begins to push it up his abdomen. Matches complies, allowing Joker to pull the t-shirt completely over his head.

The body is the same.  The body is the same.

Expression almost rueful, Matches whispers, “C’mere, baby,” and aligns their hips again, guides Joker back down onto his cock.  Joker whines, leans back onto the cock faster than Matches had intended, takes it inside, the fullness, he needs-

He knows these scars. He can find the ones from his bullets, from his knives, he can find…

The happy face meticulously carved into Batman’s ribs. 

Touches it reverently with the tips of his fingers.  Matches can tell the difference, can see the delirium suddenly injected into Joker’s arousal.  Pulls Joker’s hips lower, _“Oh,_ baby boy, be good for me,” and rocks deeper inside him, and Matches screws his eyes shut tight, like he’s praying, and he whispers, _“Please_ be good for me, please, be good for-”

Joker cuts him off with a kiss, swallows the end of the word. And they kiss and they touch and Joker rides him, relentless, stretching himself on the man’s cock, lewd noises from the friction, the mattress coils squeaking, kissing, they kiss. 

“Say my name,” the man grunts against Joker’s mouth.  He takes Joker’s cock in hand and tugs, coaxes him closer to the edge.

With the rhythm of the cock pounding his insides, Joker moans, _“Matches.”_   Because what else is there to do? He knows who this man is – the man he marked.  The man he carved and claimed as his own.  And the man wants to be called Matches. What’s in a name? Joker knows. Joker knows.  Stares at the scars.  The name bubbles up in his throat “Matches, Matches,” promising obedience, promising _anything._

Comes with his mouth wide open against Malone’s, groans and spills himself over the other man’s abdomen. Malone follows seconds later, gasping into the kiss.

Foreheads touching. Breathing together.  Joker kisses him again, tastes him, tastes this man, everything, his whole world, palms the scar.

He moves backwards on the bed and presses his tongue to the scar.  It tastes like sweat and copper and Joker’s cum, which is what Joker thinks this man ought to taste like. He licks up Malone’s abdomen to clean him, to taste it all, and Malone’s fingers start threading through his hair again, putting everything back in the correct order.

 

Some time later, the room is dark again, and Joker’s fingers still trace the curve of the smile in the scarred skin, but Malone’s fingers still slide possessively against Joker’s spine, so maybe they're even.

Matches pulls the covers up around Joker’s shoulders, then lies back against the pillows with a deep sigh.

“I’ll stay,” Joker whispers against his collarbone. “I’ll be good.”

A drowsy voice responds, “Alright, kid.  I believe you.”

Which sounds suspiciously like _I believe in you,_ and that is as good a punchline as any to fall asleep to.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment if you liked this story, let me know what you think!
> 
> The following is from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity/ 
> 
>  
> 
> _"To say that things are identical is to say that they are the same. “Identity” and “sameness” mean the same; their meanings are identical. However, they have more than one meaning. A distinction is customarily drawn between **qualitative** and **numerical** identity or sameness. Things with qualitative identity share properties, so things can be more or less qualitatively identical. Poodles and Great Danes are qualitatively identical because they share the property of being a dog, and such properties as go along with that, but two poodles will (very likely) have greater qualitative identity. Numerical identity requires absolute, or total, qualitative identity, and can only hold between a thing and itself. Its name implies the controversial view that it is the only identity relation in accordance with which we can properly count (or number) things: x and y are to be properly counted as one just in case they are numerically identical."_


End file.
